The North Miami Beach Police Department has come under fire after it was recently discovered that police officials were using mugshot images of African Americans for target practice. When an African-American Florida National Guard sergeant came to a shooting range last month for target practice, he noticed that a 15-year-old booking photo of her brother was being used as a target among other mugshots of Black men. Once the news got out about the mugshots, many people became outraged over the racially insensitive practice. Still, Major Kathy Katerman claims that the department uses a variety of different lineups for target practice, with some of the lineups being all-White or Latino. “The public thinks there should be one woman and one White man and one Black, but that’s not really what the test is about,” said Katerman. “We have targets of all races.” Read more.

Apple Doesn’t Observe the MLK Holiday

Despite the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday, there are a lot of corporate companies that choose not to observe it. According to reports, employees at Apple have to work on the holiday that commemorates the civil rights leader. The company has received some backlash because even though they have used Dr. King Jr. in their advertisements and have been known for championing diversity, they still refuse to observe the holiday. “I believe Tim Cook is sincerely committed to diversity. Apple’s top management team isn’t exactly the most-diverse group of people you’ve ever seen, but it is better now, under Cook, than it was under Steve Jobs,” wrote Dan Lyons. “So why not observe MLK Day? After all the news that came out last year about the dismal diversity statistics in the Valley, not observing the holiday looks pretty tone-deaf.” The company is known for giving their employees a limited amount of time off around the holidays. Reportedly, only 37 percent of employers will give their workers a paid day off on MLK day. Read more.

Rapper Wale Pens Piece About the Misrepresentation of Black Women in Entertainment

Rapper Wale has decided to use his music as an avenue to challenge the way African-American women are perceived in the media. In his new video “The Body,” which features singer Jeremih, the rapper opted out of casting a video vixen and decided to feature a natural model. After releasing the video, he penned a blog post for Necole Bitchie about the negative representations of Black women in entertainment. “I have honestly been sick and tired of our representation in the entertainment world,” he wrote. “When Jeremih and I did a video for my single ‘The Body,’ it hurt my soul coming to the realization that there is hardly any positivity in Black Hollywood. ‘The Body’ was an attempt to get us, as Black people, headed in a more elevated direction. Mariah [the model I used in the video] kind of epitomized what I felt a normal beautiful “round-the-way” girl looked like.” Wale has been criticized for his post because they don’t align with the lyrics of some of his previous songs, which are said to objectify women. Read more.